"We are absolutely under siege, and we are fooling ourselves if we don't think we have a problem," he said in a speech to the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.

Russia, China, and Iran are rapidly improving their cyber-attack capabilities, Rogers said. Cyber warfare is now a part of many nations’ military plans, he noted. "We used to do it with bombers and artillery shells, now they're doing it with cyber warfare."

While China and Russia probably wouldn’t try to take us down in peacetime, the same can’t be said about some other nations, Rogers stated in remarks reported by The Hill.

"What about countries like Iran? Backed in a corner, internationally isolated, developing their capability [for cyber attacks] — can they do something? Would they make a non-rational decision? I argue, absolutely," he said.

The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post have announced in recent days that they have all been victims of Chinese hackers.